Hmm. Will we be imposing economic sanctions on our own states over anti gay laws too? I'm interested to see what kind of sanctions we can put on red states. Indiana's about to try to amend its state constitution with an anti gay provision, maybe it's time for the US gov't to crack down.

I've almost got my money. I just have to write one more $5,000 check. Hold off until after that clears and I should be good.

No, they still need to wash the money first. You see, it's all covered in some sort of blue dye, and they need to put it in the washing machine. Laundering money is very expensive, and you'll need to buy special detergent. They'll need another $10,000 for the detergent, plus you need to send them a roll of quarters.

12349876:asquian: Will we be imposing economic sanctions on our own states over anti gay laws too?

If by economic sanctions, you mean the Supreme Court telling the states to shove it with their consensual sodomy laws, then yes.

It's a start. I suppose then the economic sanction is the money the idiot "legislators" waste that could have been spent on initiatives that would actually have been of a benefit to their constituents.

Oh who am I kidding, that money would have just been spent on further trying to legislate ladyparts.

Oil makes for a damn poor boycott. It is completely fungible (at a given grade--sweet oil costs a lot more than sour oil, which is one reason why the US buys from Venezuela, which has lower sulfur oil).

If you don't buy Nigerian oil, somebody else will. The price of your oil might go up if you have to buy a higher grade or the market is pinched, but everybody pays essentially the same price for oil and everybody gets their oil from the same place more or less because it is often mixed in tankers and tanks and oil refineries. By the time it gets to your gas tank, there's no knowing where it came from--especially if some suppliers cheat and break the boycott.

Even while the US was at war with Iraq, it was burning Iraqi oil. And the Iraqis were watching American movies. Iranian oil that makes it to the market despite boycotts might as well be consumed directly seeing as it is headed for China or somewhere and will come to us in the West as Chinese gee-gaws, ACs, and possibly even car parts or fuel burned to transport Chinese goods.

This is why the US Government consistently ignores those who want to cut the Arabs off. Can't be done. Even if the US produced enough oil to meet its needs, you'd still be selling on the open market, both oil for domestic and foreign consumption.

Canada produces a lot of oil but most of its Western oil production feeds into the US and only some of that gets to the East Coast. Most of the oil consumed in Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces of Canada comes from Nigeria or Venezuela or the USA. That's one reason why gasoline is more expensive in the East than the West--but not a very strong reason perhaps, seeing as shipping oil adds to the cost, and shipping by pipeline or trains across North America is, well, risky and costly. Two big train fires (one fatal for a lot of people in Quebec, and one scarcely noticed not far from where my parents live) have shown us that the new grades of oil coming out of Alberta needed to be handled slightly differently from regular grades of oil. Presumably they are less viscous and thus more flammable.

The reality of the fossil fuel business is that fossil fuels will be burned until price or absolute necessity removes them from the world market. Since a barrel of oil can do the work of something like 20-25 manual farm workers, this is unlikely to happen even at massively higher prices. Despite the best intentions of those who recognize the threat of climate change and pollution, the industry is not likely to budge until forced to by multilateral agreements between the big consumers, namely US, Europe, China, etc.

The US therefore has to use other means of persuasion with countries like Nigeria.

This is especially true since the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are coming up against growth constraints, while the new group, MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) seem set to grow more.

Not that the US doesn't have ways and means of influencing regional powers. It can just sit on their heads until they cry "Uncle" if it wants to do so. But it is politically costly for it to use its massive military and economic power and it is somewhat muscle-bound perhaps because a lot of its power is not scaled to the long-term, slow wars of attrition that are required against very distant and very resourceful and motivated customers.

Vietnam, for example. Afghanistan. Iraq, Iran, North Korea perhaps (although its people are starving, so it might be a bit of a push-over if you could keep it from going nuclear on South Korea or Japan).

Persuasion is almost always smarter than force or hard knocks to the global economy.

asquian:Hmm. Will we be imposing economic sanctions on our own states over anti gay laws too? I'm interested to see what kind of sanctions we can put on red states. Indiana's about to try to amend its state constitution with an anti gay provision, maybe it's time for the US gov't to crack down.

This country would be better off if states could start imposing economic sanctions on other states. No more of this race to the bottom crap that is only possible because companies can move to the reddest of red states and still sell products and services in blue states.

"Latest preliminary numbers emerging from Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product rebasing exercise are already suggesting that the nation's economy could show as much as a 65 percent uplift in size, when the long awaited report is released.

This would show as much as $432 billion in GDP size, placing Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa."

/$432 billion puts Nigeria about on par with Austria or Argentina. Not a major player, but a 'top 30' in the world economy rankings.//The rate of growth is, of course, explosive compared to the US, although it's easy to have a high growth rate when starting from such a low level///Re: TFA - yeah, the best way to fight homophobia is to help facilitate the expansion of the Nigerian middle class, or at least not do things (like sanctions) likely to contract said middle class

stpauler:If the US were to really get serious, we would stop all funding towards the country.

Look, Nigeria, get with the program or get off the dole.[img.fark.net image 850x595]

Get off the dole? $230M/170.1M people = $1.35 per capita, reducing the average persons annual income from $2069 to $2067.65. If that counts as being "on the dole" to you, you are nuts. I am sure USAID targets areas that are much more valuable than their dollar amount might predict and would make a big difference to some groups of people, but the country is hardly dependent on US largesse based on those figures.

Hmm. . .and I just got an email from Nigeria. Apparently a prince is trying to relocate some assets before these sanctions take place and is willing to give me 10 percent of the total amount to make it work my while.